


Pizz Hu (and a little red hat)

by 7000dominos



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Anxiety, Campaign: Amnesty (The Adventure Zone), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, God I love a lying!Duck monologue, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Other, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24994570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7000dominos/pseuds/7000dominos
Summary: Duck* Newton is having a rough night. Beacon helps.***It's a nickname.**lol this is absolutely a lie, it's BeaconAmnesty #14, en route to the hospital.
Relationships: Aubrey Little & Duck Newton, Beacon & Duck Newton, Edmund "Ned" Chicane & Aubrey Little & Duck Newton, Minerva & Duck Newton
Comments: 9
Kudos: 52





	Pizz Hu (and a little red hat)

**Author's Note:**

> As much as I tend to identify with Travis's characters, I am clearly Justin trash at heart, and I will apologize to no one. This is my second TAZ fic and I guess this is just life now. Quarantine has changed me.

Duck Newton was having a rough night. 

All in all, he supposed he couldn’t _really_ complain. Janice, Denny, and Leo were shaken, but alright, and the sheriff and them seemed to have the whole Pizza Hut/General Store fiasco handled. More than that, it was only a cursory check, but the medics had said Ned was stable, or would be, and Aubrey...well. He was missing something there, but he more or less trusted her to bounce back. 

Anyway, no one had died, and the mystery voice on the payphone had definitely told him someone would. So. He’d count it as a win. 

Just barely, though. Mystery voice aside, unconscious Ned/catatonic Aubrey/smashed livelihoods aside, the headache he could feel building behind his eyes aside - all that aside, just what the _fuck_ was going on here? Things were starting to get very weird, very quickly, in a way he’d very deliberately avoided for a long time now, and he wasn’t sure he cared for it. 

Course, he supposed he shouldn’t have expected anything else once Minnie turned up again, let alone Beacon. Duck swallowed a groan. Minnie he’d more or less gotten used to pretty quickly, at least she gave some advice sometimes, vague as it was. But Beacon...he could almost hear that overgrown toothpick now. 

_Duck Newton. What a surprise. Found yourself carted off to the local infirmary again, Duck Newton, mm? Would never have happened with me there, Duck Newton, I don’t know why you -_

“Aw, shuddup,” he muttered, and realized too late he’d spoken aloud. His eyes darted first to Ned, still far too pale and quiet on the stretcher just beyond Duck's knees. And then up, just above Ned, across from Duck in the back of the ambulance, the EMT fixed him with a curious stare.

“Sorry, what?”

Duck shook his head. “Nothin’, Kev, just talking to myself.”

Kevin, Henry and Martha’s kid from the next block over, and their EMT escort for the night, appeared unconvinced. “You alright, Duck?”

Duck exhaled. Hell of a question. 

“Yeah, I’m alright, Kev. How much longer, y’figure?” He risked a glance to his right, where Aubrey sat so close, he could feel her shaking. Still. 

“Not much. We’d-a been there already, but this snow…”

Yeah. The fucking snow. Wasn’t the only crazy thing about that night.

As if in response, Aubrey gave a sudden, spastic shiver next to him. He tried to give her a smile, but she wouldn’t look at him, so instead, he said, “Hang in there, Aubrey. You’ll be alright.”

He hoped so. He was...pretty sure she wasn’t hurt, just mighty freaked out. He had a decent guess of what by, having found her collapsed in snow immediately beside the slightly molten remains of the sign post that had wrecked Leo’s store. When he'd first staggered out, Leo in tow, he'd thought she _was_ hurt, because, hell, he hadn't known Aubrey Little long, but it only took about 30 seconds in her presence to understand sittin' still was the last thing she'd be doin' when folks were in danger.

“Aubrey?” 

She didn't so much as start at the sound of her name. It was weird seeing her so still, so quiet. Even stranger seeing her crouched in a snowdrift, a fish out of water in more ways that one. Freaked him out more than he’d have guessed possible. 

“Aubrey?” he tried again, a little gentler, but a little closer now, too, knelt in the snow with her, and then directly in front of her when she didn’t respond. This time, he put both hands on her shoulders, resisted the urge to shake her, because she was already shaking something awful. That freaked him out, too. 

“Dammit, _Aubrey_. Can you hear me?”

She made a noise, something he only barely recognized as words, all clipped vowels and muted syllables from between chattering teeth. 

“What?”

“I killed Duck.” It was something less than a whisper but he caught it this time. As much with his ears as he did like something physical, like she’d sucker punched him right in the gut. Dammit.

“ _What?!_ Aw, hell, Aubrey, no - “

“Not again,” she managed, her voice no longer quite the hoarse whisper, though her shaking seemed to have worsened. “Not again, not again, _please_ \- “

“Aw, shit,” Duck swore again, his hands moving for the first aid fanny pack at his waist before his brain was really aware of it. He sifted through bug bite ointments and blister pads for a few seconds before turning out a silver capsule a little larger than his thumb, which he quickly unfolded into a thin, metallic space blanket. 

Aubrey didn’t even seem aware as he pulled it around her. He’d have preferred to get her out of the snow, but she clearly didn’t recognize him, let alone seem capable of taking requests at the moment, so he settled for keeping her warm. Warm-ish. 

“Hey. Aubrey,” he said firmly. He took one of her shaking hands in one of his, and the edges of the blanket in his other. Tried to transfer the latter to the former. Again, it was like he wasn’t even there. Duck allowed himself exactly one half second of thinking, _Shit,_ **_did_ ** _I die?_ before saying, “C’mon, man, y’gotta stick with me here, alright? It’s me, Aubrey, it’s Duck. You didn’t kill me. I’m fine. I need - "

Before he could figure out just _what_ it was that he needed, a siren he hadn’t known he was hearing cut off with a squeal, throwing red and blue shadows into the snow beneath him. Thank Christ. He whirled around, already throwing a hand in the air to signal for help from the EMTs emerging from the newly-arrived ambulance...when he saw two of the three dart in the opposite direction. 

Shit. Ned.

Duck lurched upright and after the EMTs, only half aware his heart was pounding once again - then abruptly stopped, spun back to Aubrey, and crouched again, one hand on her shoulder. He couldn’t tell if it was still her shaking or him.

“Aubrey!” he said as loudly as he could without yelling. “Aubrey, if you can hear me, stay here, okay? I’ll be back.” Then, standing again, “Hey, my friend here needs some help!” 

Ned hadn’t been much better - much worse, in fact, quiet and still in a totally different kind of way. They’d found him face down in the snow, his coat burned clear through where the Fly Master had been, every bit as volatile as Heathcliff had promised them. And Duck...hell, he _hated_ this shit. The danger, the responsibility. The creeping fear that no one had died, but maybe he'd failed his friends anyway...it was exactly everything he'd politely turned down years ago. And now he was back. 

_Dammit_ , but it made him want to run something fierce.

He settled, instead, for a ride to the hospital.

Aubrey had still been sitting along in the snow, albeit a bit more upright and closer to the ambulance, by the time they’d gotten Ned loaded up. Duck had been the one to coax her to her feet and up into the truck, though she still hadn’t really acknowledged him. He’d recognized the EMT who guided her to sit against the empty side of the truck just before the kid had tried to slam the rear door in his face.

“Uh...hey, Kev. It’s me, Duck. It’s a nickname.”

The kid squinted at him for a moment, then smiled. “Oh, hey, Duck. Yeah, I know.” He gestured to the smashed building, the fallen sign. To Aubrey and Ned. “Rough night, huh?”

Duck exhaled on a shaky laugh. “Yeah, no shit. Speakin’ of...anyway I can get in there?”

The kid frowned. “You okay?”

“I’m okay,” Duck confirmed. “Just, uh…” He nodded at Aubrey. “Gonna keep an eye on my friend there for a bit.”

Kevin looked from Duck to Aubrey and back. “What’s wrong with her?” he started, then blushed and corrected, “I mean...there’s nothing _wrong_ with her, ‘cept shock, I figure, but - "

“Yeah, Kev, get the feeling it’s gonna be a rough night for her, too. Really’d feel better if I could ride along with y’all, no need having more wheels on the road tonight than we need, huh?”

Kevin hesitated, looking equal parts uncomfortable and uncertain. “Well, uh...no offense, Duck, but it’s not exactly protocol. You’re not injured and it’s already gonna be pretty crowded back here - "

Duck did his best to look aggrieved instead of anxious. Shit. Shit, shit, _shit_. Ned and Aubrey were really better at this sort of thing. But Ned was unconscious at best, and Aubrey was barely responding to her own name. And he wasn’t about to let either of them ride off alone into another supernatural snowstorm, weird shit or no. 

“Yeah, geez. Okay," he said finally, resigning himself to a full blown Lie. "See, here’s the thing. See? Okay. I...well. Okay. It, uh...it turns out...um, I am. Hurt. I mean. Injured. Like you said. Well. Not injured. Not per se. _Dammit_. But...uh...aw, shit. Okay, well. So. Here... _here’s_ the thing, different thing this time, it’s a lotta things, that’s why I was confused. This different thing is, see, Kev, if you're following this list of things, this is the second one, which actually should have been the first, and that thing is...it _is_ protocol. See, ‘cause Aubrey here, she’s kinda like my patient, that there is my space blanket, which means I was the one administering treatment, and in my professional ranger opinion - "

“ _Jesus_ , Duck, you’re a shit liar.”

Duck exhaled explosively, feeling like he hadn't taken a breath in about two years. “Yeah, I know," he managed finally. "Can I come anyway?”

Silence for a moment, during which Duck tried to breathe through the combined weight of his ailing friends settling on his chest. And then Kevin Stroming, the pudgy kid he’d once rescued from a splinter during a field trip a few years back, turned and called over his shoulder to the paramedics in the cab, “Hey, Duck says he’s got a headache. We’re taking ‘em all.” 

And he stood the shut the back door before Duck could try to explain just how he’d gotten his mystery headache.

\--

The three of them - well. Two of them. Ned was asleep, stable but worn-looking under one too many IV tubes in his hospital bed - were sitting in exhausted silence when the now undoubtedly just-barely-tepid coffee Aubrey had been holding suddenly slipped from her grasp. They’d only been together, alone, like that for about fifteen minutes, if that. Ned was still waiting for an official check up from the doctor, though the paramedics had done their job well enough that he seemed to be out of the woods, no pun intended. No one had come yet to kick out Duck or Aubrey, though Duck had disappeared briefly to call Mama to the scene. Leo and Janice were giving their statements to Zeke and Dewey, which Duck could only assume meant he was next, since Aubrey still hadn’t said a word to anyone. He’d just been starting to think maybe he could let his heart rate sink somewhere back into the upper 90s when Aubrey dropped her coffee. 

“Aubrey?” 

Again, she didn’t seem to hear him. But this time, there was a response as he heard her breath hitch and she made a sound far too close to a whimper for his liking. 

“Hey - Aubrey, you alright?”

She lurched forward out of her seat so suddenly, Duck found himself sort of lunging for her, as though he could get to her before she got to the ground, knelt with her spilt coffee soaking into torn jeans. Shaking again.

“Listen, Aubrey, you gotta breathe - “

“‘m gonna be sick,” she managed, in that same hoarse, scared voice he could barely hear. She took a sort of gulping breath to punctuate the sentence, swallowed convulsively a few times before her breathing picked up again. 

Duck forced a grim chuckle. “Well, yeah, I told you not to drink the shitty hospital coffee, Aubrey." When she didn't respond except to moan quietly, he moved a little closer, his hands on her arms to guide her as much as steady himself. "A'right, here, you sit up, head between your knees. There y’go. Now breathe in, count to three, breathe out, do it again.”

“Duck - “

“More countin’, less talkin’,” he said patiently. This, at least, he could do. You run into enough dehydrated hikers, he figured you could talk anyone down, even from thinkin’ they’d accidentally killed you. 

He waited ‘til Aubrey sounded like she was breathing okay on her own, watching carefully for signs that maybe she wasn’t. Still, he was awful relieved when at last she looked up at him. Her eyes were red, her cheeks flushed as anything, but she at least seemed to _see_ him.

“Duck?” she tried tentatively. 

“It’s a nickname,” he said seriously.

It was enough. She gave him a wet exhale of a laugh. “You know, you never said for what.”

“I know.” A beat. “You alright, Aubrey?”

She shifted and swallowed hard, looking away from him. “Are you?”

“Well, hell, I mean. Kind of a stressful night. You and Ned keepin’ me on my toes, I guess.” He gestured over her head to where Ned slept, machines beeping quietly. Aubrey blanched at once, and Duck swallowed a curse. 

“That wasn’t your fault, Aubrey.”

“I know. But you - "

“I’m fine. You didn’t hurt anyone.”

She said nothing to that, just gave one last shiver, and after a moment, Duck sighed and stood, offering her a hand up. She took it reluctantly but let him help her to her feet.

“D’you already call Mama?”

“‘Bout ten minutes ago. She should be here soon.”

Aubrey nodded. “Okay. I...uh...thanks, Duck. And...I’m sorry. I’m glad you’re not dead."

"Sure, well. Neither are Janice and Leo, Aubrey, and that part I'm pretty sure I couldn'ta done without you."

It was almost worth it to see the ghost of a smile flash across her face.

**Author's Note:**

> \- The title is taken from Griffin's "all you can see through the destroyed roof of the General Store" Pizza Hut goof. It is literally meaningless.
> 
> \- I hope people still read this story tho.
> 
> \- Also, I'm about halfway through the Amnesty arc, so if something here doesn't track because of info revealed in the second half, my bad. Other than that, should be pretty spoiler free.


End file.
